"Come on, uncle," he cried; "I want to show you the three plane mirrors that I've ground."

"Beauties, Tom," said Uncle Richard a few minutes later. "Tom, my lad, you're my dear sister's son, and the queerest boy I ever met."

"Am I, uncle?" said Tom dryly.

"Yes, my lad."

"You don't mind?"

"Not a bit, Tom. I'm glad."

"Then hooray! let's get to work. I want to see the moon with the new plane mirror."

"Moon, bah! You're lunatic enough as it is, boy."

Tom gave his uncle a comical look, and then shyly held out his hand, which was gripped in a clasp which made him wince.

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN.

There was a heavy post one morning at breakfast, and as Mrs Fidler glanced at the letters, she screwed up her face and turned her eyes upon Tom, to shake her head as much as to say, "What work, what work!"

For to write a letter was a terrible effort to Mrs Fidler. She could write a beautifully clear hand, as the names of the contents of her jampots bore witness, but, as she confided to Tom, it was "such a job to find the next word to set down."

One of the letters was so big and legal-looking in its broad blue envelope, whose ragged edges told that it was lined with linen, that it took Tom's eye at once; but Uncle Richard merely slit it open, peered inside, and laid it beside his plate till the meal was at an end.

"I'm going up into the laboratory, Tom," he said then, and left the room.

"That means he'd like me to go too," thought Tom, and in a minute or two he followed, and caught sight of Pete at the end of the lane watching him, with his dog at his heels, but only to turn off and walk away.

"Does that mean mischief?" thought Tom, as he went into the mill, and he shook his head as he felt that Pete was a hopeless case.

To his surprise, on entering the laboratory, where Uncle Richard was seated before the bureau with the great letter before him, he was saluted with--

"I see there's your _protege_ Pete Warboys banging about again. He is always watching this place, or waiting for you to go and play with him."

"You mean fight with him, uncle," said Tom dryly.

"Well, that does seem more in your way. Mr Maxted says you're winning him over, but I doubt it."

"Yes, uncle, so do I," said Tom, smiling.

"I feel in doubt," continued Uncle Richard, "whether I ought not to have tried to prove whether it was really he who helped to break in here.

But there: I only want to be left in peace, and a month's imprisonment would do him harm, and bring out matters I want forgotten. Ever seen these before?"

He drew some legal-looking doc.u.ments from the big envelope and held them out.

"The other papers that were stolen from that drawer, uncle?"

"Yes," said Uncle Richard, looking very stern as he took them back and threw them into the receptacle, which he then locked up, and pocketed his keys. "Which is it, Tom--repentance, or because they are of no use to the thief?"

"Let's hope it is the first, uncle," replied Tom gravely, and his uncle uttered a long, deep-toned--

"Hah!" Then, "Come along, and let's think of something pleasanter, my boy."

They went up into the observatory, where the new diagonal mirror Tom had ground and silvered was fitted into the telescope; and that night being gloriously clear, the new addition was tested, and proved to be almost perfect.

"As nearly perfect as we shall get it, Tom," said Uncle Richard; and then till quite late a glorious evening was spent, searching the dark depths of s.p.a.ce for twin stars, Tom having a goodly share of the observations; and when he was not using the gla.s.s making shift with the star-finder, and listening the while to his uncle's comments upon that which he saw.

The telescope was directed at the double star Castor; which, with Pollux, was glittering brightly in the black-looking sky, when Uncle Richard made way for the boy to take his place.

"Wonderfully clear, uncle."

"But do you notice anything particular?"

"Yes; I was going to say, it's like it is sometimes when the moon is low-down; the air seems to be all in a quiver."

"That is so, Tom. People don't, as a rule, think that they can see the atmosphere, but you can see it to-night all in motion. I think it means wind."

"Wind blowing hard a very long way up?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tom.

"What's the matter?"

"It was so sudden. A cloud has swept right across."

Uncle Richard stepped up to the opening, and looked out into the night.

"Yes," he said, "we may shut up for the night; there's a dense black curtain of clouds drawing across the sky. Come and look. Ah! how brilliant!"

Tom started. He had just taken his eye from the great gla.s.s, when the interior of the observatory was lit up for an instant by a flash of lightning, and as soon as his dazzled eyes mastered the intense darkness which followed, he joined his uncle, and looked out of the great shutter opening, to see the singular sight, of one-half of the heavens brilliantly illuminated with the countless...o...b.., while the Milky Way was clearly defined; the other of an inky blackness, moving steadily, cutting off star after star, till two-thirds of the sky was darkened, and in half-an-hour, when the shutter was drawn over and fastened, not a star was to be seen.

"We are going to have a wild night, Tom, I think," said Uncle Richard; and as he spoke there was a rumbling noise amongst the woodwork overhead, caused by a pa.s.sing blast. "There, let's go in."

Coffee was waiting when they went in, after leaving all safe, and very welcome, for they were both shivering. Soon after bed was sought, and Tom dropped into a deep sleep, from which he was roused by a rattling at his door, while some one else seemed to be shaking his window. Then there was a rumble like thunder in the chimney, and the beating at the door.

"Tom! wake up, lad!"

"Yes! All right!" cried the boy, springing out of bed. "Anything the matter, uncle?"

"Yes. Terrible storm. The big shutter has been torn open, and is beating about on the top of the mill."

"All right; I'll go and fasten it," cried Tom, beginning to dress rapidly, and waking up more and more to the fact that a wild storm was raging. Every now and then, after a great deal of shrieking and howling, as if the wind was forcing itself through crack and cranny, there came a loud heavy ba.s.s booming sound, as a vast wave of air broke upon the house, making the windows seem to be on the point of falling in, while the slates upon the roof clattered and the chimneys shook.

"My word, it blows!" muttered Tom, as he b.u.t.toned up his jacket tightly, and hurried down-stairs, to find that there were lights in the kitchen and dining-room, while in the hall stood Mrs Fidler, in a wonderful costume of dressing-gown, shawl, and night-cap.